Native Son - Richard Wright [159]
Bigger avoided the frenzied man and went to the door.
“He’s balmy!” a white man said. “Make ’em take ’im outta your cell. He’ll kill you. He went off his nut from studying too much at the university. He was writing a book on how colored people live and he says somebody stole all the facts he’d found. He says he’s got to the bottom of why colored folks are treated bad and he’s going to tell the President and have things changed, see? He’s nuts! He swears that his university professor had him locked up. The cops picked him up this morning in his underwear; he was in the lobby of the Post Office building, waiting to speak to the President….”
Bigger ran from the door to the cot. All of his fear of death, all his hate and shame vanished in face of his dread of this insane man turning suddenly upon him. The man still clutched the bars, screaming. He was about Bigger’s size. Bigger had the queer feeling that his own exhaustion formed a hair-line upon which his feelings were poised, and that the man’s driving frenzy would suck him into its hot whirlpool. He lay on the cot and wrapped his arms about his head, torn with a nameless anxiety, hearing the man’s screams in spite of his need to escape them.
“You’re afraid of me!” the man shouted. “That’s why you put me in here! But I’ll tell the President anyhow! I’ll tell ’im you make us live in such crowded conditions on the South Side that one out of every ten of us is insane! I’ll tell ’im that you dump all the stale foods into the Black Belt and sell them for more than you can get anywhere else! I’ll tell ’im you tax us, but you won’t build hospitals! I’ll tell ’im the schools are so crowded that they breed perverts! I’ll tell ’im you hire us last and fire us first! I’ll tell the President and the League of Nations….”
The men in other cells began to holler.
“Pipe down, you nut!”
“Take ’im away!”
“Throw ’im out!”
“The hell with you!”
“You can’t scare me!” the man yelled. “I know you! They put you in here to watch me!”
The men set up a clamor. But soon a group of men dressed in white came running in with a stretcher. They unlocked the cell and grabbed the yelling man, laced him in a strait-jacket, flung him onto the stretcher and carted him away. Bigger sat up and stared before him, hopelessly. He heard voices calling from cell to cell.
“Say, what they got of his?”
“Nothing! He’s nuts!”
Finally, things quieted. For the first time since his capture, Bigger felt that he wanted someone near him, something physical to cling to. He was glad when he heard the lock in his door click. He sat up; a guard loomed over him.
“Come on, boy. Your lawyer’s here.”
He was handcuffed and led down the hall to a small room where Max stood. He was freed of the steel links on his wrists and pushed inside; he heard the door shut behind him.
“Sit down, Bigger. Say, how do you feel?”
Bigger sat down on the edge of the chair and did not answer. The room was small. A single yellow electric globe dropped from the ceiling. There was one barred window. All about them was profound silence. Max sat opposite Bigger and Bigger’s eyes met his and fell. Bigger felt that he was sitting and holding his life helplessly in his hands, waiting for Max to tell him what to do with it; and it made him hate himself. An organic wish to cease to be, to stop living, seized him. Either he was too weak, or the world was too strong; he did not know which. Over and over he had tried to create a world to live in, and over and over he had failed. Now, once again, he was waiting for someone to tell him something; once more he was poised on the verge of action and commitment. Was he letting himself in for more hate and fear? What could Max do for him now? Even if Max tried hard and honestly, were there not thousands of white hands to stop Max? Why not tell him to go home? His lips trembled to speak, to tell Max to leave; but no words came. He felt that even in speaking in that way he would be indicating how hopeless he felt, thereby disrobing his soul to more shame.
“I bought some clothes for you,” Max said.